WASHINGTON – In a bombshell interview, former FBI chief Louis Freeh charges that President Bill Clinton had a faulty “moral compass” and sold out U.S. troops killed in a 1996 Saudi bombing – in exchange for cash for the Clinton library.

“The problem was with Bill Clinton – the scandals and the rumored scandals, the incubating ones and the dying ones, never ended,” Freeh says in an interview to be aired Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”

“Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction. His closets were full of skeletons just waiting to burst out.”

Freeh’s most explosive charge is that Clinton let down the families of the 19 Americans killed – and 300 injured – by a truck bomb outside the Khobar Towers apartments housing Air Force personnel in Saudi Arabia on June 25, 1996.

Clinton vowed to hunt down the bombers, and dispatched FBI bomb experts to the scene. But Freeh charges that Clinton refused to personally ask Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to let the FBI quiz the suspects in Saudi custody.

In his book, “My FBI,” which will be released next week, Freeh contends that the only way for the FBI to get those vital interviews was for Clinton to press Abdullah, who is now king. Instead, the former FBI boss charges, the president took a dive for the Saudis.

“Bill Clinton raised the subject only to tell the crown prince that he understood the Saudis’ reluctance to cooperate – and then he hit Abdullah up for a contribution to the Clinton Presidential Library,” Freeh writes.

“That’s a fact that I am reporting.”

Clinton spokesman Jay Carson rejected Freeh’s allegations as “untruths,” and noted that since leaving the FBI, Freeh has given $18,000 to Republicans, including President Bush.

“This is a total work of fiction written by a man who is desperate to sell books. It’s unfortunate that he would stoop to this level in a desperate attempt to rewrite history and clear his name,” Carson told The Post last night.

“Louis Freeh was not even present for the meetings he describes during which President Clinton repeatedly and firmly pressed the Saudis for cooperation on the Khobar Towers investigation, which led to the eventual indictments.”

The Clinton spokesman added, “Louis Freeh’s claims about library fund-raising are more untruths in a book that is clearly not short on them.”

The Clinton library has declined to reveal the specific amount of money donated by top Saudis, but reports have put it in the millions.

The mother of one of the U.S. servicemen murdered at Khobar Towers told The Post yesterday that she believes Freeh’s devastating charge against the former president.

“I have every faith in Louis Freeh. He did a lot for the Khobar families and I have to trust his word,” said Carol Haun, whose son, Capt. Leland Haun, an Air Force navigator, was killed in the blast. Haun added that under President Bush, the FBI maintains contact with the Khobar families and she believes that the Bush White House cares about solving the terror attack: “They do, more so than the Clinton administration.”

Freeh says he felt as if he were in a “bad movie” when he learned that Lewinsky had kept a semen-stained dress as a souvenir of her White House trysts with Clinton and he had to get a Clinton blood sample to see if the DNA matched.

“Well, it was like a bad movie and it was ridiculous that . . . [special prosecutor] Ken Starr and myself, the director of the FBI, find ourselves in that ridiculous position,” Freeh tells “60 Minutes’ ” Mike Wallace.

“But we did it . . . very carefully, very confidentially.”

The technique was to set up a hush-hush blood-taking when Clinton was at a scheduled dinner and excused himself to go for a bathroom break, Freeh recounts.

Instead of going to the toilet, Clinton went to another room, where FBI technicians were waiting to take his blood, the former FBI chief says.

But it wasn’t the only Clinton scandal – Freeh says that the FBI also got involved in “multiple investigations,” including Whitewater, Travelgate, funny money, Paula Jones’ charges of sexual harassment and Gennifer Flowers’ claims of an affair.

Freeh – who was appointed to the FBI post by Clinton – said he had so little trust in his boss that he decided to stay on as FBI chief until Clinton left office. He did so to deny Clinton the chance to appoint a successor.

“I was concerned about who he would put in there as FBI director because he had expressed antipathy for the FBI, for the director. I was going to stay there and make sure he couldn’t replace me,” Freeh tells Wallace.

He says that during the probe into Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Whitewater land deal, he decided to distance himself from the then-president, and refused a White House pass that would let him enter the presidential compound without signing in.

“I wanted all my visits to be official. When I sent the pass back with a note, I had no idea it would antagonize [Clinton],” Freeh tells “60 Minutes.”

Freeh adds that returning the pass irked Clinton, but things got much worse later, to the point where Clinton reportedly began to refer to him as “that f- – -ing Freeh.”

Freeh comments: “I didn’t know how they referred to me and I really didn’t care. My role and my obligation was to conduct criminal investigations. [Clinton], unfortunately for the country and unfortunately for him, happened to be the subject of that investigation.”

Clinton has maintained friendly ties with the Saudis since leaving office.

In January 2002, he got $750,000 in speaking fees for going to Saudi Arabia. On a 2003 Saudi visit, Clinton brought along 40 friends at Saudi expense in a private plane, including actors Chevy Chase and John Cusack and Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, according to The New York Sun.

The Saudis then flew Clinton and his pals on to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and on to Germany. Less than three months later, Clinton praised Saudi Arabia to the 9/11 commission.

FORMER FBI BOSS LOUIS FREEH ON BILL CLINTON: (Quotes)

“The problem was with Bill CLinton – the scandals and the rumored scandals … Whatever moral compass the president was consulting was leading him in the wrong direction.

“Bill Clinton raised the subject (of the FBI investigating the Khobar Towers bombing) only to tell the crown prince that he understood the Saudis’ reluctance to cooperate and then he hit Abdullah up for a contribution to the Clinton Presidential Library … That’s a fact that I am reporting.”

“(Clinton) had expressed antipathy for the FBI, for the director … (So) I was going to stay there and make sure he couldn’t replace me.”